Jacob Apkarian joins sociology faculty

September 25, 2015

Jacob Apkarian

Jacob Apkarian has been appointed an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Virginia Tech’s College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.

Apkarian is one of 16 new faculty members this fall at the college. This year’s hires enhance existing program strengths and increase the college’s national profile across the arts, humanities, and human and social sciences.

“Faculty excellence is at the heart of Virginia Tech’s ability to succeed,” Dean Elizabeth Spiller said. "I am very pleased to welcome such a gifted and transformative group of scholars, artists, and teachers to the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences."

Apkarian's research areas are organizational behavior, political economy, and social networks. His most recent work examined competing institutional logics in corporate finance and donor-candidate networks in state politics. He will be teaching social research methods.

Apkarian has been published in scholarly journals including Connections, Tertiary Education and Management, Journal of Primary Prevention, and Journal of Social Structure.

He holds a Ph.D. and a master's degree from the University of California at Riverside and a bachelor of science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.